Looking this over, it occurred to me that this might be a suitable venue
for a project I've been wanting to do for a while but which life has
been getting in the way of lately; the demonstration of 'compound
living' with the use of CNC based microyurts. Compound living is where a
home is based on a cluster of small shelters in the open. Instead of
creating a large building divided into many rooms, you use closely
spaced small buildings, each independently heated and powered, designed
to host the functions of one or two rooms, and optionally linked by
decking and outdoor lounge areas. In this way one facilitates the use of
much smaller structures with much lower impact on the land and which are
easier for the individual owner-builder to construct and deploy. It's a
concept I once briefly discussed with Pierre Koenig shortly before his
death; he working on a very high-end Modernist expression of the concept
at the time and I exploring the possibility of repurposing prefab
structures like small car shelters as a low-cost owner-built solution
for the low-toxic housing crisis. (I got his attention because,
apparently, I was among the first and last people to ever contact him by
email) Currently, I feature a compound home concept as one of the
possible housing designs for the Open House documentary project--a
project to showcase Post-Industrial culture through the demonstration of
the owner-built construction of a home and lifestyle based entirely on
Open Source designs and personal digital fabrication.
What is interesting with compound living in this festival's context is
the way it merges the home with the immediate natural surroundings.
Little to no landscape modification would be used, the microshelters set
in the found space nature provides using small pier foundations. The
open natural environment--let's say, a forest--becomes one's home and
the small structures rooms within that home with the flora and fauna of
the local environment free to intersperse the living environment. And so
this presents a very different relationship between nature and the built
habitat with unique lifestyle aspects. (for better and worse in some
aspects--you might have a bit of a problem in locations with rougher
climate or a lot of dangerous fauna...) There is a potential here for
the cultivation of a greater empathy for the natural habitat and more
direct awareness of human impact on it. You are making a home in nature
the way a family of racoons might inhabit a hollow tree, yet it's not
'camping' or 'roughing it' in any way as one is employing the best
technology has to offer for a safe and comfortable living within, rather
than apart from, nature. This notion might suit this festival theme well.
But building a permanent compound home would be beyond the scope of a
festival exhibition and so I consider a more nomadic approach based on
the use of several 'microyurts' that is still clearly above the level of
camping. A microyurt is a simple shelter that employs the structural
concept of the traditional yurt--the rigidized insulated tent--but at
smaller size with more contemporary materials, assembly, and design,
such as the use of a CNC cut skeleton frame made of EcoBoard with
puzzle-fit assembly. I've been planning to develop a set of these based
on the calabash gourd shape which has been featured in a lot of
furniture design lately. Simply imagine this at a human scale;
http://kitticraft.com/shop/cat-beds-and-swings/calabash/#product_images[grouped]/0/
This shape is interesting for its organic character, it's relation to
native pottery shapes which could inspire its surface decoration, the
way that it provides a fully contained form supporting a sheltered
raised floor, and the fact that it would perfectly accommodate the
mounting of a small vertical axis wind turbine or radial solar panel
array on its top to power LED lighting, small electric heating, mobile
device charging, and cluster WiFi. And with a gridded structure as
demonstrated by the above cat bed, there is much potential for integral
appliances and shelving. Depending mostly on the difficulty in crafting
the exterior fabric shell, developing a set of these with specialized
interior design variations for a portable compound could be possible
within the time before the festival date. Is it possible that support
for such a project could be found?
On 4/13/16 5:24 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Subject:
[P2P-F] Fwd: [commoning] Open Call for Pixelache Helsinki 2016
Festival – Interfaces for Empathy – 22-25.9.2016
From:
Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>
Date:
4/13/16, 5:24 PM
To:
p2p-foundation <[email protected]>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *andrew gryf paterson* <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 6:23 AM
Subject: [commoning] Open Call for Pixelache Helsinki 2016 Festival –
Interfaces for Empathy – 22-25.9.2016
To: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
// apologies for cross-posting //
Festival dates: 22.-25.9.2016
Deadline to apply: 1.5.2016
For whom: artists, activists, scientists, thinkers and doers +
everything in between also groups and collectives.
For what: performances, interventions, installations, talks,
workshops, actions, processes, in any field.
The perspective that Pixelache’s 2016 festival Interfaces for Empathy
explores is one of empathy. The festival sets out to engage with the
question and proposal that maybe empathy could be learned, found or
especially re-found through bodily experience and presence or
experimental communication that is not limited only in between humans.
The festival embraces embodied and alternate visions of perception
that distance us from the perceptual machines that we might be in
danger of becoming due to sense-altering medias and augmented
realities. Is it possible, through this very basic ability to sense or
identify, to change the narrative of the human-kind towards being a
more balanced part of the ecosystems we live within? The dimension of
empathy we are especially exploring in this years festival is on
microlevel; individual experience, identity and on personal relations.
The festival’s main venue is Lapinlahti former psychiatric hospital in
central Helsinki, Finland. Despite of the hospital area’s central
location in the city, it is situated close to the sea and surrounded
by big park & cemetery. There are several indoor and outdoor spaces in
the environment that used to be part of the first psychiatric
institution of Finland. The festival also reaches out to other places
in the city through collaboration with Kiasma - the Museum of
Contemporary Art and MUU galleries.
Some projects from the festival will be chosen to tour in two other
towns in Finland, Jyväskylä and Rovaniemi, in November 2016.
Read also
http://pixelache.ac/posts/pixelache-festival-2016-interfaces-for-empathy-22-25-9
Please send your proposal through the online form at www.pixelache.ac
<http://www.pixelache.ac> website. The information about the call
results will be sent in May 2016. The festival program is planned
through collaborative process by festival co-directors Mari
Keski-Korsu and Petri Ruikka, Pixelache member & artist Egle Oddo,
researchers Katri Saarikivi and Valtteri Wikström from NEMO research
group and Helsinki University, artist and professor from IT University
of Copenhagen Laura Beloff and other Pixelache members.
If you have any questions, please contact [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
--
andrew gryf paterson
m.fi <http://m.fi> +358 50402 3828 [permanent]
m.lv <http://m.lv> +371 28 689 482 <tel:%2B371%2028%20689%20482> [prepaid
when lv]
http://agryfp.info |http://j.mp/agryfp-archive
socialmedia id: agryfp
--
Eric Hunting
[email protected]
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